Can a site like mi.yodeya.com be used for one to fulfill our sages mandate of "Make for yourself a Rav"?

Obviously I meant this facetiously. Of course a website cannot take the place of a rav, but did you see some of the halachic questions that are being asked and sound like they are being asked for practical reasons?!

What if an actual poseik came and answered a question on mi.yodeya? Would that be considered p'sak?
– Adam MoshehMay 14 '12 at 7:29

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@AdamMosheh If someone will come and call himself RElyashiv and we can verify that it's him, then possibly there is what to discuss (we may ban in anyways since it's bad in principle). Until then, how can you listen to any "posek" on this website? Do you know who they are? How do you know that they are reliable? At most, one can look up the sources that they bring. Even that is problematic as not every psak of every big Rabbi is accepted in the Jewish world for practical Halacha.
– Shmuel BrinMay 15 '12 at 18:32

Assuming verification of who they are.
– Adam MoshehMay 15 '12 at 18:54

What may be a more interesting question: Can you fulfill the mitzvah of "kisvu lakhem es hashira hazos" by answering questions here? Much like the question of whether it must be a sefer Torah, or would writing a sefer or buying sefarim also qualidy. It's where I thought you were going with the subject line. I connected to the pasuq, "pesal lekha shenei luchos avanim".
– Micha BergerJan 28 '16 at 19:01

4 Answers
4

This is an excellent and very, very, important question for a website like this, one that I've been thinking about from the beginning.

First of all, let me identify with the answers provided by Shalom and Alex and reiterate that mi.yodeya does not provide professional (particularly rabbinic) advice.(1) We try to alert users to this with red writing at the top of each page, a bold "Consult your Rabbi" suggestion on the "Ask a Question" page,(2) a disclaimer that comes up in red on the sidebar for new users and in bold in the the FAQ. In addition, I encourage answer-writers to stick in some humble language like "Here's my understanding, but ask your Rabbi before taking action." as necessary.

The remaining question is: What if people ignore the warnings and use mi.yodeya information as if it was professional rabbinic advice? I don't have an ironclad answer, but I think that on balance, we're doing OK. People give classes on Jewish law and practice all the time, and there's always the danger that attendees (or archive-listeners) will act on what they hear in the class or in an associated Q&A session without asking their Rabbi first.(3) The danger here is similar and, I think, similarly tolerable, with the advantage that we're explicitly warning against such practice at every turn.

Hopefully, more people will be encouraged to ask their Rabbi questions that otherwise wouldn't have than the other way around, thanks to our questions and answers spreading awareness of the issues and our disclaimers reminding people to go talk to their Rabbi.

All that said, I do need to upgrade my efforts (non-zero but not successful) to get Rabbinic guidance myself on this very point. And, of course, I'm very interested to hear what community members think.

UPDATE: I spoke to an internationally-respected rabbi who has experience and interest in Internet issues. He generally approved of the approach we're already taking, provided that we make sure that the disclaimers are prominent enough to be seen by everyone, and that we make it clear that while discussions of Jewish life naturally include Halachic content, people should go to a rabbi, not a website, for actual Halachic advice (my paraphrasing). I think we're pretty much fulfilling his advice already, but I'm going to review our disclaimers and consider beefing them up. Also, though the rabbi didn't bring it up, I'm seriously considering implementing some sort of flagging mechanism like the one Barry suggested. (See also my comment there.)

UPDATE 2 (2011 June 19 - after the migration to SE 2.0): When we migrated from the SE 1.0 site mi.yodeya, which I could edit more of, to this SE 2.0 site, the disclaimer went away, since it's not a standard part of an SE 2.0 site. We asked to have it put back, and SEI added it to the sidebar for new users. I also added it to the FAQ.

UPDATE 3 (2016 January 28 / 19 Shevat 5776): We now, once again, have a disclaimer on the top-right of most paged on Mi Yodeya. The same or similar text was already in our Tour, Help Center, and halacha tag rollover text.

1) If you're wondering what it's good for, given that, please see my blog post on the topic.

2) See Update 2, above.

3) Recall the Blue Fringelyric "I just heard a half hour halacha shiur / And decide to change the way I've lived for 18 years."

I think any question can sound like a sheilah, perhaps it might be more effective to flag answers that sound like psak.
– YirmeyahuApr 8 '10 at 6:44

Isaac, visitors to the site are telling me that they do not notice the red warning because they start scrolling as soon as they hit the page. Flagging halachic questions so that they have the disclaimer in the question box sounds like a better system.
– YahuApr 12 '10 at 17:23

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I think we are sidestepping the real issue here.. the issue is not "should I act based on what a website says or should I ask a rabbi".. that is obvious and no one disagrees on the answer to that.. but the real question is... "should I act based on what a website says or should I just do what I think is right on my own?" which is the harder and more relevant question. The reality is that many people who read this site don't have a real "rav" and are not planning to get one any time soon, but they ask here because they are still interested in the truth. Is it better that they don't ask at all?
– Desert StarOct 5 '11 at 11:48

Isn't the key phrase there "for yourself"? On a website like this you can get some interesting information and discussion, but it won't be tailored to your specific situation, where you stand in Jewish observance, etc.

So no, there is no substitute for a personal Rabbi/mashpia/mentor/whatever you want to call it, who can show you how to integrate the various abstract halachic and meta-halachic principles into actual day-to-day practice.

Perhaps there should be a way to flag a question as soliciting a psak. Similar to how in Wikipedia's reference desk, if a post smells like it's asking for medical advice, the crowd will respond that it's against the rules.

OTOH, many web surfers who are uncomfortable asking a Rabbi, may simply decide a question for themselves, absent an online method for getting answers. In that case, getting a crowd-sourced answer is probably better.

Re: Flagging: Interesting idea. Currently, we depend on answerers to incorporate something like "make sure to ask your Rabbi" when they feel it's necessary. I'm willing to consider something more heavy-handed from the moderators. Maybe there could be a practical-halacha tag that would be added to any such question and some scripting that would automatically insert an "Ask your Rabbi" note in every question with that tag.
– Isaac Moses♦Mar 17 '10 at 17:32

Re: Crowd-sourcing over self-paskening: I agree that this might lead to better outcomes in some cases, but I'm not comfortable with that being part of mi.yodeya's intended usage.
– Isaac Moses♦Mar 17 '10 at 17:34

Re: Your last point: I'll work on this more after Pesach.
– Isaac Moses♦Mar 17 '10 at 17:35